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Baez predicted walk-off homer vs. Japan

2013 MLB.com Top Prospects: Javier Baez has plus bat speed with good hands and a strong arm at shortstop

By Carrie Muskat
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MLB.com |

MESA, Ariz. -- As Javier Baez was headed to the plate in the ninth inning Friday with the Cubs tied at 5 against Team Japan, he told Welington Castillo, who was on deck, to relax.

"I said, 'You're not hitting,'" Baez said.

Castillo didn't have to. Baez hit a walk-off two-run homer, his second blast of the game, to lift the split-squad Cubs to a 7-5 victory over Japan in an exhibition game in front of 2,915 at HoHoKam Stadium.

Baez also hit a solo shot in the seventh, which closed the gap to 5-4, and the Cubs tied the game in the eighth on Dan Vogelbach's RBI single.

The Japanese team may have been a little jet-lagged. They arrived in Arizona late Tuesday, and played the Giants on Thursday. The next stop is San Francisco for the semifinals of the World Baseball Classic.

"It was a real baseball game -- it wasn't really a Spring Training baseball game," Cubs bench coach Jamie Quirk said of the close contest.

Baez, the Cubs' No. 1 Draft pick in 2011 and the club's No. 1 prospect, said the last walk-off home run he could remember came in high school.

"[The first homer,] I was just sitting on a fastball, and he threw me two, and I missed them, and then he threw me a fastball inside," Baez said. "I was patient at the plate. [In the ninth], with a man on second, I knew he'd throw a slider or a curveball, and he threw me a slider and I hit it hard and hit it over the fence."

This was Baez's third spring home run, although the statistics from the exhibition game won't count in the Cactus League stats.